yaggy
Well-known member
This is about getting the best sound quality out of a multi-arcade machine.
I have a POW
risoners of War cabinet converted to Pigskin
that is running a PC/Mame setup.
The video is squared away - pixel perfect resolutions, no-tear scrolling,
frame rate synced, etc. But it's rocking a single factory 4"/8ohm speaker
and fed from a radio shack 35w 2-channel amplifier the size of a cable
modem with the stereo switch flipped to mono.
Games typically put out sounds that range from 150Hz to 15,000Hz.
But to handle this, they have an on-board amplifier that puts out
about 8 watts of what I guess is peak power (as opposed to RMS
or Programme) wired with 20-24ga wired to "dollar store" mid-range
drivers, often 10w and of questionable frequency response.
Pinball machines like the Williams system 11 series all handle the
hardware aspect of sound with two top speakers in the backbox
and one lower cabinet speaker. On the left is a decent mid-range
driver, on the right a tweeter. Firing towards the floor is an 8" woofer.
Even though its mono sound, it's rich, dynamic and satisfying.
So the question is, without doing modifications to the cabinet
(it has two 5" spaces for speakers), would it be best to just
maybe stick two decent mid-range speakers in there and enjoy
stereo sound (which maybe 30-35% of the game selection offers,
the rest are all mono) or go with a woofer/tweeter combo and
have rich monaural sound?
Since arcade games utilize a lot of mid-range sound, it might be
advisable to get a "full-range woofer" even a "midbass" but there
really isn't much call for the need to produce frequencies below 150Hz.
To go a step further, and this is merely food for thought since it
entails more cash getting spent, should these speakers have a
higher (100w) handling ability and be driven by something beefier
than that 35w amp? How noticeable would the clarify jump be?
Thanks.
I have a POW
that is running a PC/Mame setup.
The video is squared away - pixel perfect resolutions, no-tear scrolling,
frame rate synced, etc. But it's rocking a single factory 4"/8ohm speaker
and fed from a radio shack 35w 2-channel amplifier the size of a cable
modem with the stereo switch flipped to mono.
Games typically put out sounds that range from 150Hz to 15,000Hz.
But to handle this, they have an on-board amplifier that puts out
about 8 watts of what I guess is peak power (as opposed to RMS
or Programme) wired with 20-24ga wired to "dollar store" mid-range
drivers, often 10w and of questionable frequency response.
Pinball machines like the Williams system 11 series all handle the
hardware aspect of sound with two top speakers in the backbox
and one lower cabinet speaker. On the left is a decent mid-range
driver, on the right a tweeter. Firing towards the floor is an 8" woofer.
Even though its mono sound, it's rich, dynamic and satisfying.
So the question is, without doing modifications to the cabinet
(it has two 5" spaces for speakers), would it be best to just
maybe stick two decent mid-range speakers in there and enjoy
stereo sound (which maybe 30-35% of the game selection offers,
the rest are all mono) or go with a woofer/tweeter combo and
have rich monaural sound?
Since arcade games utilize a lot of mid-range sound, it might be
advisable to get a "full-range woofer" even a "midbass" but there
really isn't much call for the need to produce frequencies below 150Hz.
To go a step further, and this is merely food for thought since it
entails more cash getting spent, should these speakers have a
higher (100w) handling ability and be driven by something beefier
than that 35w amp? How noticeable would the clarify jump be?
Thanks.